§ 65. GREEK TEACHERS AND ITALIAN HUMANISTS. 589
Not even had Gregory the Great any knowledge of the language. The erection of chairs for its study was recommended by the Council of Vienne, but the recommendation came to nothing. The revival of the study of the language was followed by the discovery of Greek manuscripts, the preparation of grammars and dictionaries and the translation of the Greek classics.
If we pass by such itinerating and uncertain teachers as the Calabrians, from whom Petrarca and Boccaccio took lessons, the list of modern teachers of Greek opens with Emanuel Chrysoloras, 1350-1415. He taught in Florence, Milan, Padua, Venice and Rome and, having conformed to the Latin Church, was taken as interpreter to the council at Constance, where he died. He wrote the first Greek grammar, printed in JLjl^i. The^rst lexicon was prepared by a Carmelite monk, Giovanni Crastone of Piacenza, and appeared in 149T. Provided as we are with a full apparatus for the study of Greek, we have little conception of the difficulty of acquiring a bookknowledge of that language without the elementary helps of grammar and dictionary.
A powerful impetus was given to Greek studies by the Council of Ferrara, 1439, with its large delegation from the Eastern Church and its discussions over the doctrinal differences of Christendom. Its proceedings appeared in the two languages. Among those who attended the council and remained in the West for a period or for life, were Plethon, whose original name was Georgios Gemistos, 1355-1450, and Bessarion, 1403-1472. Cosimo de' Medici heard Plethon often and was led by his lectures on Plato to conceive the idea of the Platonic Academy in Florence.
Bessarioni_bishop^f Nicsea^ became a fixture in the Latin Church and was admitted to the college of cardinals by Eugenius IV. The objection made in conclave to his candidacy for the papal chair by the cardinal of Avignon was that he was a Greek and wore a beard. He died in Ravenna. Like all Greeks, Bessarion was a philosophical theologian, and took more interest in the metaphysical mystery of the eternal procession of the Spirit than the practical work of the Spirit upon
590 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1204-1517.
the hearts of men. He vindicated Plato against the charges of immorality and alleged hostility to orthodox doctrines, pointed to that philosopher's belief in the creation and the immortality of the soul, quoted the favorable opinions of him given by Basil, Augustine and other Fathers, and represented him as a bridge from heathenism to Christianity. Bessarion's palace in Rome was a meeting-place of scholars. At an expense of 15,000 ducats or, as Platina says, 30,000, he collected a valuable library which he gave, in 1468, to the republic of Venice. 1
George of Trebizond, 1395-1484, came to Italy about 1420, conformed to the papal church, taught eloquence and the Aristotelian philosophy in Venice and Rome, and was appointed an apostolic scribe by Nicolas V. He was a conceited, disputatious and irascible man and quarrelled ..with Valla, Poggio, Theodore of Gaza, Bessarion and Perotti. The 50 scudi which Sixtus IV. gave him for the translation of Aristotle's History of Animals^ he contemptuously threw into the Tiber. His chief work was a comparison of Aristotle and Plato, to the advantage of the former.
Theodore^ of Ga,z9., George's rival, was a native of Thessalonica, reached Italy 1430, taught in Ferrara and then passed into the service of Pope Nicolas. He was a zealous Platonist, and translated several Greek works into Latin and some of Cicero's works into Greek and also wrote a Greek grammar.
John Argyropulos, an Aristotelian philosopher and translator, taught 15 years with great success at Florence, and then at Rome, where Reuchlin heard him lecture on Thucydides. His death, 1486, was brought about by excess in eating melons.
The leading Greeks, who emigrated to Italy after the fall of Constantinople, were Callistus, Constantine Lascaris and his son John. John Andronicus Callistus taught Greek at "Bologna and at Rome, 1454-1469, and took part in the disputes between tlie Platonists and Aristotelians. Afterwards he removed to Florence and last to France, in the hope of
^ Bessarionis Opera in Migne's Patrol. Groeca, vol. CLXI. Lives of Bessarion by Henri Vast, Paris, 1878, and H. Rocholl, Leip., 1904.